(I originally posted this in Plex Features, thinking I was here)
Since the new (and wonderful, thanks!) SKIP INTRO feature works at the individual season level, it would seem obvious that there could (should?) be some tuning features available for the function at that level in our libraries. For example:
enable/disable skip intro for the season (or series)
set the detection threshold/window (at least within some given min/max)
allow the detector to use a manually marked intro as a pattern to find/mark all the other episode intros in a season
The ability to disable for a series or even a season would be nice in the even that intros are incorrectly detected. Then disable would hide the SKIP INTRO button during playback, removing the temptation to use it.
The ability to tweak the time window used for intro detection might allow the detection of intros (such as the Aadams Family, which never shows a skip intro button despite having such a clear intro theme song, exactly one minute long) when there is a long(ish) theme song or it might allow for improved ‘end of intro’ detection in the event that the skip button actually jumps a little TOO far into the beginning of the episode.
Manual marking (or editing) intros would be great for shows that have “Previously on…” sequences before the intro and for shows with intros that don’t fit the detection rules for placement close to the beginning or by changing frequently.[mod-edit: duplicate, see above]
The ability to use a marked intro as a template is probably more of a dream, but it sounds like it could be useful, doesn’t it?
[Edit: I want to vote for my own suggestion, but the vote button says ‘Limit’ and when I click it I get a 403 error!]
Regarding The Addams Family, you’re referring to the '64 series, correct?
I just checked the first episode and the skip intro button appeared for me.
Are you sure the intro was detected for you? Try analyzing the show again at the series level.
If you click the vertical dots on an episode and then click Get Info then click View XML you should see the following line if the intro was detected:
I have asked Plex to analyze the series multiple times. I assume it does something silently, because there has never been any visible activity as a result. Even when I click the Activity button (at the top of the web client.)
But your info about what to look for shows me that the intros were detected for season one, but I must have finished S1 before they were added, because I never saw the skip intro button. I cannot find the marker type “intro” on any of the season two episodes.
I have tried asking the series to be analyzed and also tried asking for each individual season to be analyzed. Still no intros for S2.
Another Intro detection feature I would like to see is maybe an xml or something like the .plexignore for some of those features you mentioned. Also, being able to group episodes of a season together manually for intro detection, a lot of anime I watch has 1st and 2nd corrs to seasons and have different Intros for the 2 corrs even though they are the same season (on TheTVDB which is a whole nother issue for me) so 2nd corr never has the intro skip option.
From what I understood while searching, Plex scans for similar content in the first ‘‘x’’ seconds of an episode, and does this for all episodes of a season (hence the comparison).
I love the feature, when it works, because I want it to analyze the entire episode, not just the first ‘‘x’’ seconds, that I think is 40 (found it on reddit, could be wrong).
Some TV shows display:
new content / intro / new content / credits.
If this is the case, I am out of luck because intro detection doesn’t seem to work.
Other even show some new content after credits (like future episode previews), if Plex can crack the code on detecting intros across the episode timeline, and not just the begining, maybe they can do the same for the credits.
It would be possible to check the presence of chapters in the file before searching for the intro. And if there are signed chapters like intro, outro, then use them. It would be a manual way of editing. chapters.xml.txt (11.7 KB)
